Jack Ludlow - Vengeance

All his efforts had failed in the face of the most powerful man in the district and those who backed him, not least the magister militum Conatus. The offences committed by Senuthius, both alleged and known as facts, were listed, those of Blastos being broadly outlined, as well as the twin layers of protection that ensured they were never sanctioned. The crimes that could be laid at the door of Senuthius shocked even a young man who knew the object to be corrupt, for there were laid out acts of thievery the nature of which he was unaware.

This letter received a sympathetic reply, added to a reserved position on Vitalian and any proposed insurrection, but no real hint that Justinus would act regarding Senuthius and Blastos. Reading it several times, the words intrigued Flavius. The youngster got a strong impression that Justinus was agnostic on the dispute regarding dogma, though the letter was so carefully worded as to be open to several interpretations. While asking his father to reiterate his complaints it seemed also to contain some kind of gentle admonition, hinting to Decimus that he could not take them any further unless the centurion avoided all reference to religion.

Decimus had taken the hint; he duly rewrote his original complaint and was rewarded by a more positive reply. Justinus, having unfettered access to the throne he was tasked to protect and to oblige an old friend, had bypassed the court officials, especially the protective relative of Senator Senuthius, and taken these critiques directly to the emperor himself, where they were seen as matters requiring more information, for instance the names of potential witnesses prepared to testify, this duly provided in that crabbed and inelegant parental hand.

Dated as being no more than a month past, the last missive from Constantinople carried within it a notification that an imperial commissioner with plenipotentiary powers would soon be despatched to investigate both named miscreants – it would include an imperial confessor to question Gregory Blastos – one that would bypass and keep in ignorance the Patriarch of Constantinople and the provincial government as well as certain unnamed but obvious palace officials.

Flavius conjured up an image then, of his father’s elation as he read something that would lay to rest years of frustration. Had he, when he led his men out to fight, carried a private hope that this would be the last time he would be obliged to leave his quarters to put down an incursion that had likely come about in retaliation for some act of Senuthius?

Had he, perhaps, looking into the future, had his mind on his long-cherished hope of which he made no secret: that with an end to raiding from within the empire and some diplomacy, added perhaps even to a proper treaty, lasting peace and security could be brought to both banks of the River Danube?

‘The Bishop Gregory is here to see you, Master Flavius.’

Flavius turned to acknowledge the slave who had been sent to tell him of this visit, realising that he was one of those whose manumission he had this very morning examined. This was not the time to tell him; that must wait for a formal reading of the testament.

‘Be so good as to ask Ohannes to attend upon me?’

As the slave went to do as he was bidden, Flavius, with some difficulty and a serious amount of pain from his shoulder, slipped out a hand from his sling to retie the bundle as tightly as it had been on discovery and reseal the letters in the oilskin pouch. Lacking a place to hide it, for he felt by instinct it needed to be kept as undisclosed now as it had been when his father was alive, he slipped that into the black sling that once more held his arm.

The youngster was determined to avoid wearing his emotions on his sleeve, to present a calm demeanour when within he was seething with hate and a desire for bloody revenge. How easy it was to imagine behaving in that fashion, given his lack of years and a quite natural apprehension in dealing with a man many years his senior and one his father called a natural and practised dissembler. In deep and resonant voice, Gregory Blastos offered his condolences for both his loss and that of his absent mother.

He then made an enquiry as to the state of his damaged shoulder, very obvious in its sling, but no remark followed regarding the equally evident blemishes on his face, now two proper black eyes. His tone then became that of a man of position and maturity, addressing what to his mind was no more than a callow youth and one, moreover, who had quite seriously sinned against God and his church, much being made of that funeral pyre.

The cleric, given he glanced several times, was obviously wondering at the presence of Ohannes, who was standing just inside the door, silent and stiff of face. One reason was the trust now reposed by Flavius in his father’s retainer, added to his fear that he would be unable to control his desire for revenge; the old soldier was there to stop him committing violence or even murder.

Added to that was the fact that he would never allow himself to be alone with a known pederast, a man who had, by repute, trouble controlling his hands. The Belisarius brood had been a handsome lot, none more angelically so until puberty than Flavius and even that had not rendered him ugly: he was tall for his age and well proportioned and he worried that under the clerical pomposity and strictures there might be a degree of unwelcome attraction.

‘What you did was blasphemous, if not idolatrous, and it is only sympathy for your understandable grief that stops me from acting to chastise you as I would another, though I must insist that you do suitable penance when your period of mourning is complete.’

Flavius replied with a blatant lie, one accompanied with violently shaking knees, which he reckoned was plain to see under the embroidered smock that barely covered them. Likewise his voice, hoarse anyway, seemed to have within it an added and obvious tremor, which he sought to cover with a bowed head.

‘I thank you for that, Your Eminence, I acted in haste and heartache.’

‘Understandable,’ the bishop murmured softly, smiling, lips now shiny and wet. He moved a couple of paces closer, a hand held out towards the good shoulder, which made Flavius shift quickly to one side to keep a space between them.

The youngster was not in the least sorry for what he had done but it would be folly to challenge the divine who represented the authority of the patriarch in this part of the province, a man who, with no father to protect Flavius, could bring down on him a punishment he would have no means of avoiding. At a word from this slimy Greek, Flavius could spend the rest of his days in a salt mine.

Why had Blastos waited so long to come calling? Was it to emphasise his own standing in relation to the status of a mere imperial centurion? In the two days since he had set light to that pyre the youngster had received a whole host of citizens expressing sympathy, some the smaller landowners who had been part of the militia gathered to repel the barbarians.

In times past the same men had often come to the very room in which he received them to complain about some act of Senuthius that diminished their pride or their purse; now they were keen to make plain they had only acted on the field of battle as that same figure dictated. In accepting their condolences, as well as their excuses, Flavius had wondered how much of what they said was true conscience and how much a mere pretext to salve their guilt.

Now he felt, in some cases, a sense of embarrassment; within the list his father had sent to Constantinople were the names of people who had come to offer him their condolences, which had Flavius castigating himself for his notion of them being false in their feelings. He could not prevent, at that point and with those thoughts, his good hand straying into his sling to feel the outline of the pouch of documents secreted there. If he saw the movement and wondered, the mind of Blastos was elsewhere.